Are you really you when you're hungry? Scientists define difference between 'hungry' and 'hangry'

MILWAUKEE -- Scientists have defined the difference between being hungry and being "hangry."

If you're hangry, your hunger pains are putting you in a very bad mood.

In an effort to better understand "hanger," in one experiment, researchers asked more than 400 people across the country to do a few online experiments. In another, they asked 200 students to either eat or fast before coming to the lab.

Some of the students were asked to do a writing exercise about their emotions and others wrote about a neutral experience.

Those who wrote about the neutral experience and fasted beforehand were more likely to express stress and feeling hateful, leading researchers to conclude being in a stressful situation and not being in tune with your emotions can make you cross the line from hunger to "hanger."

Study authors urged further research to understand how hunger and emotions are intertwined.

The findings appear in the journal "Emotion."

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